Conference Agenda
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Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 19th Aug 2026, 21:29:25 EET
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04 SES 06 A: Agency, Participation, and Educational Choice
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04. Inclusive Education
Paper Immigrant Parents' Choice of School: Agency, Protection, and Recognition Stockholm University, Sweden Presenting Author:This article examines how parents with immigrant backgrounds exercise agency through school choice and how these choices illuminate broader processes of inclusion, exclusion, and belonging within contemporary European education systems. Focusing on the Swedish context, the study addresses the following research questions:
Rather than treating school choice as a purely instrumental or market-driven decision, the study conceptualises it as both a practical and moral act through which parents seek educational quality, safety, and cultural and religious recognition. These questions are highly relevant across Europe, where education systems increasingly function as key sites for managing diversity, integration, and social cohesion. The analysis is grounded in Jeffrey C. Alexander’s civil sphere theory, with particular emphasis on his typology of modes of incorporation: assimilation, hyphenation, and multicultural incorporation. This theoretical framework enables an examination of how inclusion operates not only through formal rights and access, but also through symbolic recognition, moral evaluation, and everyday practices. Education is theorised as an interstitial institution within the civil sphere—situated between the state, the market, and civil society—making it a critical arena for negotiating belonging in multicultural democracies. Applying civil sphere theory to immigrant parents’ school-choice practices extends European research on integration by highlighting how parents actively challenge assimilationist norms and advocate for multicultural forms of inclusion. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative, interpretive design based on semi-structured interviews with seven parents of immigrant background whose children attend a primary school in a segregated urban area of a major Swedish city. The parents have diverse migration trajectories, national origins, and educational backgrounds, reflecting patterns common across many European urban contexts shaped by post-migration diversity. Data collection included in-depth interviews and informal conversations focusing on school choice, parental engagement, experiences of recognition or exclusion, and perceptions of the education system. The analysis followed an abductive approach, combining deductive coding informed by civil sphere theory with inductive coding grounded in parents’ narratives. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The purpose of the discussion is to contribute to European and international debates on migration, education, and integration by foregrounding immigrant parents as agents of civil belonging rather than passive subjects of policy. The findings demonstrate how school choice functions as a strategy to secure recognition and protect children from marginalisation, while simultaneously revealing the limits of formal equality in education systems where majority cultural norms remain dominant. By situating Swedish empirical material within a broader European context, the article highlights how schools can operate as local civil spheres that either reinforce or challenge symbolic boundaries of belonging, offering insights relevant to policymakers, educators, and researchers concerned with inclusive education in diverse societies. References Alexander, J. C. (2006). The Civil Sphere. Oxford: Oxford University Press. This is the core theoretical reference. Alexander’s civil sphere theory and his typology of modes of incorporation (assimilation, hyphenation, multicultural incorporation) provide the main analytical framework for understanding school choice as a moral and symbolic act of belonging rather than a purely instrumental decision. Osman, A., & Månsson, N. (2015). Somali parents’ perception of the Swedish school. This study offers crucial empirical grounding by challenging deficit-oriented assumptions about immigrant parents’ involvement in education and highlighting structural and cultural barriers to recognition within Swedish schools. Antony-Newman, M. (2018). Parental involvement of immigrant parents. This work supports the paper’s argument that parental engagement is culturally mediated and often misrecognised by host-country schools, a finding highly relevant across European education systems. Lund, A., Osman, A., & Thunborg, C. (2026). Education, civil repair, and inclusion. This reference situates education as an interstitial institution within the civil sphere and strengthens the paper’s European and comparative relevance by linking schooling to processes of civil inclusion and exclusion. 04. Inclusive Education
Paper Children’s Agency in Inclusive Primary School Classrooms with Paraprofessional Assistance – Negotiating Spaces of Acting, Participation and Belonging Leibniz University Hannover, Germany Presenting Author:Individual support roles, e. g. labelled as teaching assistants or paraprofessionals, have been established as resources of support for pupils with assigned special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in several European countries. In Germany, paraprofessional assistance is a child-centred, individually assigned resource with its legal background in social care. Both in German and international research, paraprofessional assistance is discussed in an ambivalent manner: While for many pupils with SEND paraprofessional assistance is prerequisite for attending mainstream education and participating in class, research also indicates a risk of stigmatization and internal exclusion due to the exclusive character of support practices (Sharma & Salend 2016). Studies have been addressing different challenges related to the paraprofessional’s role, professionalization and cooperation (Fritzsche & Köpfer 2022). The impact of the paraprofessionals’ individual support practices on the pupils’ interaction with peers, their social and curricular participation as well as their perception of the resource has only recently been receiving attention by research (Cameron 2014; Webster & Blatchford 2013). Existing research, however, focusses mostly on older pupils who are able to communicate verbally whereas younger pupils and those with high support needs are usually not included. The findings of existing studies indicate an ambivalent impact on the pupils’ participation: Some pupils use the support practices in order to meet class-related goals or to fulfil behavioural norms, but at the same time experience it as a partial giving up of their autonomy (Köpfer & Böing 2020). These findings implicitly refer to the concept of agency which can be considered a desideratum in school-related research. Agency, however, is regarded as a key concept in childhood studies where it is seen as a crucial part of childhood and growing up (James & James 2012). Children’s agency remains mostly unexplored regarding children with SEND and their experiences at school. Research shows that children with SEND are more likely to be restricted in their agency by adults and peers and experience less opportunities to negotiate spaces of acting (Devecchi et al. 2014; MacArthur et al. 2007). The impact of being individually supported by adults in school can be identified as a research gap. Taking into account the described research gaps regarding paraprofessional assistance and children’s agency, the proposal addresses the paraprofessionals’ impact on the children’s agency and their possibilities to negotiate spaces of acting, participation and belonging. It specifically focusses on younger pupils as well as nonverbal pupils with high support needs and also includes the practices and voices of their peers which have not been considered by research so far. The proposal addresses the following questions:
Due to its focus on both the pupils’ practices and the significance of paraprofessional assistance as a context of these practices, the proposal uses a multidimensional approach to agency which was developed as part of the presented PhD-study. This approach links a post-structural and an ecological understanding of agency. From a post-structural perspective, agency is understood both as the performative power to act emerging from performative acts of subjectivation (Butler 1997) and as a discursive positioning (Davies 1990), i. e. aligning one’s actions with a specific discursive practice. The ecological approach conceptualizes agency as “a temporal and relational phenomenon” which emerges from the “ecological conditions through which it is enacted” (Biesta et al. 2017, 40) focussing on how actors achieve, produce and enact agency within specific environments and under certain ecological conditions. The approach therefore analyses a performative, a discursive and a temporal-relational dimension of agency. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The proposal will present the findings of an ethnographic PhD-study which was conducted in 2 inclusive primary schools in Germany. The ethnographic approach combined the method of participant observation in the classrooms with focus group interviews with the pupils. The method of participant observation was chosen to reconstruct the pupils’ practices in relation to the paraprofessionals’ practices. Furthermore, it took into account that some of the pupils with paraprofessional assistance were nonverbal and communicated on a presymbolic level. The focus group interviews were used to provide the pupils with a space to express their voices (Lundy 2007) and offered a more direct approach to peer-cultural practices due to the absence of teachers and paraprofessionals. Topics being discussed in the focus group interviews included friendship, classroom and breaktime activities, adults in the classroom and support practices. The verbal character of this methods and the resulting exclusion of nonverbal pupils can be regarded a limitation of the study which was met by the combination with the participant observation. The data collection was longitudinal and was realized over a period of 3 years. The observation protocols and transcribed focus group interviews were analysed by using Grounded Theory methodology and the related coding methods (Strauss & Corbin 1998) in order to identify key practices and manifestations of agency. In addition, selected observed situations and excerpts from the focus group interviews were analysed by using a sequence analytical approach. The sequence analysis used the method of ‘address analysis’ which focusses on reconstructing practices of subjectivation in modes of verbal and physical address which produce both subject positions and related spaces of acting (Rose & Ricken 2018). The proposal will present the results of the analysis of both the participant observation and the focus group interviews. It also aims to discuss the findings in the context of international research on paraprofessional assistance as well as children’s agency and participation and to also indicate relations to the European discourse on children’s rights. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The analysis shows that the children’s possibilities of negotiating agency and the spaces of acting that are available to them are linked to negotiations of participation and belonging. Both the observations and the focus group interviews indicate a restricting effect of the paraprofessionals’ practices on the pupils’ possibilities to negotiate agency. The pupils with SEND often experience practices of being regulated and addressed as disturbers, being deprecated or shamed by the paraprofessionals as well as having the paraprofessionals speaking or making decision for them. These practices do not only result in a risk of being excluded from classroom activities or peer interaction but extensively restrict their spaces of acting. The pupils’ possibilities of negotiating agency are limited to either accept the restricted spaces of acting and reproduce a positioning as dependent and incapable or to react in a subversive and resisting way. The analysis indicates that the restricting practices of the paraprofessionals are linked to their marginal position and agency within the classroom and school environment (Kakos 2022). However, the analysis does not only focus on the restricting effect on the pupils’ agency, but also on situations in which pupils jointly negotiate agency. The findings emphasize that possibilities of achieving agency emerge from peer-cultural practices in which the pupils jointly create spaces of belonging (Nind et al. 2022) while engaging with the adults’ practices, e. g. practices of behavioural regulation or restrictive support practices. Thus, the children create spaces of resistance as well as safe spaces which can be interpreted as a type of heterotopia (Foucault 1986). Moreover, Bhabha’s (1994) concept of the 'third space’ is used to analyse the creation of hybrid spaces as an ‘in-between’ of child-specific and pupil-related norms as well as adult-specific practices allowing the pupils to jointly perform a subversive form of agency. References Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London & New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (1997). Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. London Routledge. Davies, B. (1990). Agency as a Form of Discursive Practice. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 11(3), 341-361. Devecchi, C; Rose, R. & Shevlin, M. (2014): Education and the Capabilities of Children with Special Needs. In: Hart, C. S.; Biggeri, M. & Babic, B. (Eds.): Agency and Participation in Childhood and Youth. London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury,145-162. Foucault, M. (1986). Of other spaces. Diacritics, 16(1), 22-27. Fritzsche, B. & Köpfer, A. (2022). (Para-)professionalism in dealing with structures of uncertainty – a cultural comparative study of teaching assistants in inclusionoriented classrooms. Disability & Society, 37(6), 972-992. Kakos, M. (2022). A third space for inclusion: multilingual teaching assistants reporting on the use of their marginal position, translation and translanguaging to construct inclusive environments. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1-16. Köpfer, A., & Böing, U. (2020). Students‘ perspectives on paraprofessional support in German inclusive schools: Results from an exploratory interview study with students in Northrhine Westfalia. International Journal of Whole Schooling, 16(2), 70-92. Lundy, L. (2007): ‘Voice‘ is not enough: conceptualizing Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. British Educational Research Journal, 33(6), 927-942. MacArthur, J., Sharp, S., Kelly, B. & Gaffney, M. (2007). Disabled children negotiating school life: Agency, difference and teaching practice. International Journal of Children’s Rights 15(1): 99–120. Nind, M.; Köpfer, A. & Lemmer, K. (2022). Children’s spaces of belonging in schools: bringing theories and stakeholder perspectives into dialogue. International Journal of Inclusive Education. Rose, N. & Ricken, N. (2018). Interaktionsanalyse als Adressierungsanalyse. In M. Heinrich & A. Wernet (Hrsg.), Rekonstruktive Bildungsforschung. Zugänge und Methoden (S. 159-175). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Sharma, U. & Salend, S. J. (2016). Teaching Assistants in Inclusive Classrooms: A Systematic Analysis of the International Research. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 41(8), 118-134. Strauss, A. & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of Qualitative Research – Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory (2nd edition). London: Sage. Webster, R., & Blatchford, P. (2013). The educational experiences of pupils with a statement for special educational needs in mainstream primary schools: Results from a systematic observation study. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 28(4), 463-479. 04. Inclusive Education
Paper The Nexus of Early Childhood Intervention-Inclusive Education: A Three-country Critical Discourse Analysis of Participation and Active Agency of Key Stakeholders 1: University of Patras, Greece; 2: University of Sydney, Australia; 3: University of Cyprus, Cyprus Presenting Author:Early intervention is recognised as a right for individuals in specific groups, and particularly children with disability with the Convention on the Rights of Child (UNCRC) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) providing ‘the theoretical human rights underpinnings for the provision of early intervention’ (Brown & Guralnick, 2012). To strengthen the complementary mandates of the UNCRC and UNCRPD, a group from the two UN Committees worked on a joint statement, released in March 2022. The Joint Statement reaffirmed the right to quality inclusive education as not compatible with the existence of two systems of general and special education, and acknowledged that ‘early intervention, accessible learning environments and individual support must be provided in all phases of education process for ensuring the inclusive education’ (Committee on the Rights of the Child & Committee on the Rights of Children with Disabilities, 2022, par. 9). We start from the premise that even though there is a longstanding acknowledgement of the significance of early intervention, there is lack of clarity of how early intervention, in this instance early childhood intervention, relates to inclusive education. As Underwood et al. (2018) comment the positioning of the right to early intervention under Health is problematic ‘for young children and their families who are likely to interact more frequently with community childcare and early education programmes than with health services because health services are organised around the medicalisation of individual characteristics of the child’ (p. 58). Where early childhood intervention is located clearly relate to its intention and purpose. Another important issue is that rights discourses are not the only influence of understanding and developing early childhood systems, as dominant ableist discourses continue to influence fragmented systems that have been historically segregated and exclusive. According to Tomlinson (2017, p. 167) the ‘manufacture of inability’ has been justified by ableist discourses which present special-therapeutic services as beneficial. Such systems built on a deficit approach to disability (Underwood et al., 2020) undermining the centrality of children and families in decision-making about supports, and prioritising professionals and special-therapeutic services. To explore how the prerogatives of the right to inclusive education is understood and translated into national policy, we compare policy documents of three countries, Australia, Cyprus and Greece. The three countries are characterised by similarities and differences. All three countries have been shaped by international policy influences and policy borrowing in their approach to educating children with disability. They have ratified all relevant international conventions and proclaim that their policies, action plans and national strategies as well as budgetary decisions are in accordance with their expectations. Australia and Cyprus share a colonial history, while Cyprus and Greece share similar structures concerning health, social care, and education, geographical proximity, and linguistic, cultural, and political bonds. All three countries are UN and OECD members, and Greece and Cyprus are members of the European Union. Using a critical discourse analysis approach, we examined key international and national policy documents to find answers to the following research questions:
The significance of the study lies in how the in-depth comparative analysis of different documents from different countries with marked differences illuminates the commonality of dominant ableist discourses in the nature and role of early childhood intervention. The discourse analysis demonstrates that both early childhood intervention and inclusive education as ‘social problems’ are informed by the same discourses based on a utilitarian understanding of (dis)ability. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The present study builds on the research team’s previous work, which conducted a comparative policy analysis of three countries, examining early childhood intervention and its intersection with inclusion. As a next step, the study advances this line of inquiry through a critical discourse analysis of key policy documents framing early childhood intervention and inclusive education in the countries of Australia, Cyprus, and Greece. The following key documents were systematically reviewed through a line-by-line reading to identify dominant discourses: The National Autism Strategy 2025-2031 (Australia; Commonwealth of Australia-Department of Social Services, 2024), the National Strategy and Action Plan for Autism 2024–2028 (Cyprus; Deputy Ministry of Social Welfare, 2024), and the Ministerial Decision 4510/B/2024 for a Pilot Programme on Early Childhood Intervention for Children Aged 0-6 (Greece; Government Gazette, 2024). The critical discourse analysis was selected as the most appropriate methodological approach, as early childhood intervention and inclusive education are both understood as ‘social problems’ of a ‘multidisciplinary’ nature (van Dijk, 2008; 2018). Accordingly, this approach enabled a focus in which discourses related to early childhood intervention and its intersection with inclusive education ‘enact, confirm, legitimate, reproduce or challenge relations power abuse (dominance)’ (van Dijk, 2018, p. 467) within the societies of Australia, Cyprus, and Greece. Initially, each author analysed the key document from her country and produced analytic memos to capture initial interpretations of the content. The three authors then engaged in a series of meetings to discuss their understandings of the emerging findings. At a later stage, a thematic analysis, was conducted to identify patterns across the data. During this phase, codes were developed for each key document, and common recurring themes were identified, along with similarities and differences in language use, including the ways in which power relations between stakeholders were articulated when present. Three main themes were emerged: • Diagnosis and therapy guide early childhood intervention with an emphasis on health and ‘typical’ development • Early childhood intervention and inclusive education are separate spheres with a weak connection valorised by a special education discourse • Family-centeredness and the voice of young children are obscured by the dominance of professional knowledge and expertise. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings Despite the differences of the countries and of the national documents, evident in the analysis of the three documents is a prevailing similarity in a fragmented understanding of early childhood intervention with an emphasis on diagnosis. In particular, in Australia and Cyprus, while the significance of early intervention is acknowledged, there is no clear definition or operationalisation. The emphasis is on diagnosis and a medical approach and in the Greek document in particular the diagnosis constitutes the ‘ticket’ to access early childhood intervention. The link between early childhood intervention and (inclusive) education is limited in the Australian document and it has a special orientation in the Cypriot one, while in Greece a ‘readiness’ transition is emphasised through the lens of a child’s adaptivity to the school setting. There are references to social circumstances that may require supports, but they are also linked to typical and atypical development. The presentation delves in the three documents exploring the circumstances and (vested) interests that inform the documents, the control that families have in decision making and allocation of funds and resources, and how education for professionals is understood. All three documents acknowledge a family-centred approach, but the analysis indicates that professional knowledge drives the allocation of resources and supports. Further, the discussion will return to a rights-based approach to question the extent that this is evident in the documents, especially in terms of early childhood intervention as the means of ‘reducing the implications’ of disability. References Commonwealth of Australia -Department of Social Services. (2024). The National Autism Strategy 2025-2031. https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/national-autism-strategy-first-action-plan-2025-2026?language=en. Deputy Ministry of Social Welfare (DMoSW). (2025). Revised national strategy and action plan for disability 2024-2028. https://www.gov.cy/media/sites/7/2024/02/National-Strategy-and-Action-Plan-2024-2028-1.pdf. (in Greek) Government Gazette. (2024). Ministerial Decision 4510/B/2024 for a Pilot Programme on Early Childhood Intervention for Children Aged Zero (0) to Six (6). https://www.nomotelia.gr/photos/File/6068b-24.pdf. (in Greek) Tomlinson, S. (2017). A sociology of special and inclusive education. Routledge. Underwood, K., Frankel, E., Spalding, K., & Brophy, K. (2018). Is the right to early intervention being honoured? A study of family experiences with early childhood services. Canadian Journal of Children's Rights/Revue canadienne des droits des enfants, 5(1), 56-70. United Nations (1989) Convention on the rights of the child. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child United Nations. (2006). Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-persons-disabilities. United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and Committee on the Rights of Children with Disabilities. (2022). Joint Statement. The rights of children with disabilities. United Nations: Author. van Dijk, T.A. (2018). Critical discourse analysis. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The Handbook of discourse analysis (2nd edition), pp. 466-485. John Wiley & Sons. van Dijk, T.A. (2008). Discourse and power. Mc Millan. | ||